“So, what more do we need to do?” Clive asked as he looked over her shoulder at the remains of the shelter.

“We’re essentially done with the excavation phase. All that’s left is to remove the bones and artifacts and seal them up for transportation back to the Institute. Then we can backfill the site.” She turned to Salazar and Adelsky. “Fine job, you two.”

They smiled, hesitated, and Nora said, “Now I suppose you want to do some gold prospecting?”

“Well,” said Adelsky. “You did promise.”

Nora had to laugh. “You’ve earned a break. Okay, we’ll wait for tomorrow to get the bones tagged and sealed for shipment.”

* * *

After lunch, Nora unfolded her diagram of the cliffs. She and Clive had managed to get some more searching in here and there since the first serious attempt, and now only two sectors remained.

“You really think it’s there?” Adelsky asked, peering upward.

“I’m sure it is,” said Clive. “It wasn’t on the bodies, and there isn’t any other place they could have hidden it, given all the snow.”

“What about this area of the diagram, here?” Salazar was pointing to a spot Nora had recently shaded red, at the far end of the last sector.

“That area is threatened by that stubborn cornice up on the ridge. We can’t search that sector until the cornice either melts or falls.”

“The ‘red sector,’” Adelsky said melodramatically, looking at the diagram. “Sounds like a spy novel. What do you want to bet that’s where it ends up being hidden?”

They gathered the equipment and packs and hiked up the valley. Nora put on the harness and began climbing to various cracks and holes. Salazar belayed her while Clive and Adelsky searched the lower openings that were reachable by scrambling.

Around four in the afternoon Nora called for a halt. They had now covered all of the areas not threatened by the cornice. At the bottom of the cliff, still roped up, Nora cast her eyes over the remaining holes and cracks in the red sector.

“That’s it?” Salazar called over to her.

“That’s it.”

“Damn,” said Adelsky. “As long as we’re here, let’s finish up.”

“Go ahead, knock yourself out,” Salazar told him. “I’ve seen cornices like that fall before. You wouldn’t get me to search in there now for fifty million in gold.”

Nora’s eye traveled upward to the scree slope and avalanche chute leading to the ridge. The chute was swept clear of trees—obviously many avalanches had come down in the past. She raised her binoculars. The cornice was still a good hundred feet deep, and it slumped over the cliff edge as if it would give way at any moment.

“Jason’s right,” she said, taking off her gear. “It’s far too dangerous.”

She looked around at the downcast expressions. Even Clive looked a little disappointed. But as the expedition leader, she knew she couldn’t take such a crazy risk.

Then an idea hit her. She turned back to Adelsky and Salazar. “You guys swept the entire site with the magnetometer. Right?”

They looked at each other. “Right,” they chorused.

“Well, before we pack up for good, let’s use it for one more careful sweep around the corpses of Spitzer and Reinhardt.”

Clive frowned. “Why? We already excavated out several feet from those bodies.”

“I know. But we’ve checked all the cliffs that we can for now. And who knows—maybe they hid the gold a little farther away from their camp than we’ve dug.”

Salazar shrugged. “I’m game.”

The other three walked over to the burial site while Salazar went back to the main tent, retrieved the proton magnetometer, and returned. Nora and the rest stood well back while Salazar set up the sensor and cabling and made the necessary calibrations to the device. Then, with even more than the usual amount of care, he began to traverse the site in an ever-widening spiral.

Nora followed his progress from her iPad. At first, Salazar noted lots of hits on the magnetometer’s console, but Nora could see these corresponded to what they’d already found. As he began to circle the bodies at a greater distance, the hits dropped to infrequent, then to none.

The air of expectation that had settled over the group despite this strategy being a long shot disintegrated. Clive glanced at Nora as if to say, Well, it was a good idea, anyway.

“Got something,” Salazar said.

Immediately, the others snapped to attention.

“What?” Adelsky asked.

“Just a shadow. I’ll check the surrounding area.” Salazar made another few transits with the magnetometer, farther from the bodies, then returned to the spot where he’d gotten the hit and went over it again, still more carefully. “This is it. Whatever’s buried is here.”

“Could it be an iron chest?” Clive asked.

Salazar shook his head without looking up from the console. “Not that large and not ferromagnetic. But there’s something, and it’s subsurface.”

He marked the spot, then stepped back and turned off the magnetometer. Adelsky had already run off to fetch a set of tools, which he handed to Nora. She gloved up, knelt, and began exposing the area Salazar had marked.

It took only ten minutes of careful digging. The magnetometer had picked up a small grouping of bones. Nora excavated below and around it, but there was clearly nothing else.

“It looks like a tiny leg,” said Salazar. “Oh, God.”

Nora already knew exactly what it was—she had recognized it even as she was uncovering it. “It’s Samantha Carville’s missing leg.” And after a moment she added, “To be precise, what we have here is a tibia and fibula, along with the foot bones, belonging to a small child. If you look closely at the tibia, you’ll see knife and teeth marks in addition to the scorching.”

“Jesus,” murmured Salazar.

“Are you sure it’s Carville’s?” Clive asked.

“Who else’s?”

The question needed no answer, and none was offered.

* * *

Half an hour later, Clive was following Adelsky and Salazar back down the trail. Nora watched them disappear into the trees at the edge of the meadow, then returned to the work tent to get the tarps out in preparation for pegging down the site. She had mapped and logged the final bones into the database.

As she was working, she saw a figure emerge from the trees. It was that FBI agent, Corrie Swanson. Damn, will she never leave us alone?

She stood up and waited for the agent to arrive.

“Am I disturbing you?”

Nora shook her head. “Just about done. What’s up?”

Corrie paused. “I had a few more questions.”

Nora sighed. “Okay.” She noticed the agent didn’t have her cell phone out to record. That was a good sign—she hoped. “Shoot.”

“It’s about Dr. Benton.”

“What about him?”

“I’ve now spoken to everybody, and I’m still a little confused about precisely why he approached you for this project, and not a place like Stanford or the University of California.”

“I’m an archaeologist. The Santa Fe Archaeological Institute is world class. End of story.”